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are primarily fiber-based technologies.” She says the find-
ing at Pitch Lake, bolstered by other recent discoveries,
is contributing to a newly emerging picture of more
complex early societies in the Caribbean. A 2015 study
of grain residues on Archaic pestles in Trinidad showed
that as early as 5000 b.c., people were eating a variety
of cultivated plants, including toxic tubers that require a
lengthy processing period to be safe to consume. “Often,
the perception of the Caribbean, and indeed most of the
Americas, is that the more distant the past, the more
simple and basic the lifeways,” Ostapkowicz says. “Yet
new research is beginning to change that view.”
There still, however, is one lingering mystery about
Pitch Lake: Why were the wooden objects deposited
there in the first place? Decades ago, Boomert proposed
that perhaps a landslide spilled the contents of nearby
houses into the tar. Such an event might explain the
Amerindian myths about how Pitch Lake formed. The
wide range of new radiocarbon dates suggests the objects
entered the lake, whether by accident, disaster, or ceremony,
over a long span of time. Boomert argues that larger, more
artistic objects like the paddles and benches may have been
deposited with intention, just as the votive offerings from
elsewhere in the Caribbean that were placed in caves and lakes.
“Nobody goes walking there with a wooden bench in the form
of a jaguar and then says, ‘Oh, there it goes,’” he says. “That
must have been a deliberate action.” A human skull dredged
from Pitch Lake raised the intriguing possibility that the tar
pit was used for burials. But Ostapkowicz’s team found that
the skull, about 2 , 200 years old, doesn’t overlap with the age
of any of the wooden artifacts, which therefore can’t be con-
firmed as burial offerings.
The new dates do offer solid proof for the antiquity of
the Pitch Lake artifacts, dispelling the idea that they were
made in historic times. In addition, they offer a glimpse of
the impressive woodworking abilities of ancient Trinidadians.
Ostapkowicz recently collaborated with local artists from the
Santa Rosa First People’s community to carve replicas of some
Pitch Lake finds so that visitors to the National Museum of
Trinidad and Tobago can feel what it would have been like to
hold one of the wooden paddles or bowls. Johnson says the
museum is now able to supply its displays with the ages of
their Pitch Lake objects, enriching one aspect of a site that
many Trinidadians might take for granted. “Pitch Lake is not
a one-dimensional thing,” Johnson says. “It’s part of our his-
tory, it’s part of our commerce, it influences the lives of the
people living around it—it’s a living thing. Even to this day, it
still brings our history to the surface.” nMegan Gannon is a journalist based in Berlin, Germany.Most of the known wooden artifacts from else-
where in the Caribbean had been pulled out of caves
by nineteenth-century guano harvesters or found at a
few waterlogged archaeological sites. These artifacts,
such as snuff tubes, reliquaries, and ceremonial seats,
were linked to shamans or other high-status people who
may have left the objects as offerings in caves and lakes,
which were considered entry points to the underworld.
“They were preserved because they were visually strik-
ing, incredibly elaborate artifacts,” Ostapkowicz says.
In contrast, most of the artifacts from Pitch Lake are
utilitarian. “Domestic items are far rarer,” she adds.
“That’s why Pitch Lake is so special.”
Ostapkowicz enlisted a crew of specialists to determine
the age, geographic origin, and wood type of the artifacts.
Cranfield University biochemist Fiona Brock developed a
procedure to remove and decontaminate small samples of
the artifacts for radiocarbon dating. Asphalt has its own
(usually extremely old) age, so any leftover pitch clinging
to the wood could have resulted in an artificially early date
for the artifacts. Brock adapted pitch-removing protocols
used by scientists at the famous La Brea Tar Pits in south-
ern California and the team soon had radiocarbon dates
for each of the objects.
Boomert had previously believed that most of the Pitch
Lake artifacts were made at the site of Palo Seco, near the
shores of the lake. This settlement belonged to the Saladoid
culture, which flourished in the Caribbean between 300 b.c.
and a.d. 800 and was defined by extensive trade networks
and finely decorated pottery. Ostapkowicz’s team found that
most of the Pitch Lake carvings were indeed made during
the Saladoid period. But the radiocarbon dates yielded some
surprises. For example, while the two weaving tools look
quite similar and were both discovered in the northern part
of the lake in 1965 , within just two months of each other, the
radiocarbon dates showed that the tools were crafted centuries
apart. One was made between a.d. 600 and 700 , during the
Saladoid period; the other was made as early as 3340 b.c. by
the Archaic Ortoiroid people. The latter is the oldest wood
carving that has ever been directly dated in the Caribbean.
“It’s quite amazing that they have material from 3000 b.c. all
the way up to the end of the Saladoid period,” says Lisabeth
Carlson, an expert on Caribbean prehistoric archaeology with
SEARCH, a private archaeological consulting company. While
the isotope tests suggested most of the objects were made
locally, this weaving tool, or at least the wood used to carve it,
came from the South American mainland, in northern Guyana,
almost 200 miles away.
Previously, archaeologists believed weaving didn’t start
in Trinidad until the Saladoid period. There was simply no
evidence of the practice until ceramic spindle whorls started
showing up in the archaeological record. But Ostapkowicz
thinks the people who were migrating into Trinidad from
South America during the Archaic period certainly had some
knowledge of making textiles and other woven objects. “To
survive in the tropics, you need hammocks and nets, and these
Dating of two weaving tools from Pitch Lake
showed one (far left) was made in the sixth century a.d.
and the other (left) in the fourth millennium b.c.,
much earlier than the technology was thought to have
been practiced in Trinidad.